Oil exploration companies involved in the drilling, completion and production phases of oil and gas well installation use hundreds, if not thousands of down-hole tools such as tubulars, drill bits, mud motors, power packs, etc. while drilling, exploring and completing oil and gas wells. Some technologies have been utilized in the recent past to help such companies log individual tools into inventory; track usage of individual tools in the drilling, completion and production operations; and ultimately record the removal of individual tools from inventory when their usefulness has expired. The cost of down-hole tools is relatively high. Accordingly, it is desirable to optimally use and/or reuse many pieces of oil field equipment for subsequent drilling and development operations. However, the down-hole tools or “assets” undergo considerable stresses during drilling and completion operations. The failure of a down-hole tool generally requires the suspension of drilling operations to recover the remainder of the drill string and other related equipment. Such recovery of a drill string can be very expensive and time consuming, and thus is preferably avoided. It is also desirable to maintain complete service records relating to various pieces of oil field down-hole equipment such as, for example, drill pipe or any other down-hole equipment for the purpose of maintaining accurate and detailed records based on use, inspections, repair and maintenance, inventory, ownership or other relative criteria.
Since drilling operations usually involve the participation of a variety of workers, each having specialized skills and training, it is often not practical to dedicate a single person or a group of people to be responsible for tracking the whereabouts of individual pieces of equipment utilized during a prolonged drilling operation, or to be responsible for ensuring that each piece of equipment is regularly maintained and serviced in such a manner as to ensure that the equipment remains operationally safe.
Thus, what is needed is a method and apparatus that automatically monitors assets being tripped into and out of the wellhead of an oil and gas well.